Titans hockey drops three games over past week

Injuries and illnesses crushing team

By Than Acuff

The high school hockey season is a grind. Between the physical demands, the road trips and the subsequent rash of illnesses that can spread like a plague through a team, it’s a challenge to barely stay on track, let alone battle opponents throughout the entire season.

This past week, all those elements of a season hit the Crested Butte Titans hockey team like a freight train as they dropped three games in a row and are still losing players.

“We’re dropping like flies,” says coach Joey Otsuka. “We got no healthy goalies and are down to eight players. It just keeps getting worse.”

It all started when the Titans hosted the Durango Demons on Thursday, February 8. Durango came out flying on the Titans as Crested Butte was still trying to get their rhythm going with lines mixed up due to the rash of illnesses. Crested Butte hung on, but Durango eventually scored on a powerplay six minutes into the game. Titans’ goalie Ryder Church was on point in net to make several saves and Crested Butte worked hard to keep the game just 1-0 by the end of the first period.

“They came out and asserted their game on us,” says Otsuka. “Which can be easy against a team that’s on DayQuil.”

The Demons proceeded to score two more goals in the second period and then tacked on a fourth goal in the third before Grady Dietrich scored the Titans’ only goal of the game falling 4-1 to the Demons. Church finished with 31 saves in the game.

“Durango came out and owned the puck and executed their game plan and there was not much we could do,” says Otsuka.

Adding injury to illness, the Titans also lost Dietrich to injury toward the end of the game and would be missing him when they hosted Liberty the very next day.

Liberty came into the game against Crested Butte with an 11-4 record and at the top of the Northern Division league standings with a core of talented players leading the way.

“They have three pretty highly skilled players,” says Otsuka.

Liberty jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period and tacked on two more in the second period. Crested Butte finally broke the seal on the Liberty net as Zander Zacher and Jake White each scored in the third period, but Liberty scored one last goal to skate away with a 6-2 win.

“Our leaders were there but I could tell it was really tough for our younger players,” says Otsuka. “They didn’t shy away, it was just tough. Can’t create chemistry with so many missing players.”

The Titans finished the three-game stretch on the road playing the number one team in 4A, Glenwood Springs. Illness continued to circulate through the team, and they were down to 13 players for the game. Glenwood Springs would go on to beat the Titans 10-2 with Voyta Jirka scoring both goals for the Titans.

“Voyta had a great game in Glenwood,” says Otsuka. “He was most of our offense all three games. They just went out there and played as best they could. Credit to the players, no matter what’s going on, they have no fear and trust in each other.”

Crested Butte was scheduled to face Durango again this week but are now down to eight players and no goalies, so they had to cancel the game. They close out the regular season at home this weekend when they host Steamboat Springs on Friday and Saturday, February 16-17. The puck drops at 5:30 p.m. on Friday and 2:15 p.m. on Saturday at Jorgensen Ice Arena.

“We’ve got all of our eggs in one basket,” says Otsuka. “We have to beat Steamboat at least once if we want to make the playoffs.”